Dear Editor,
My late mother, Anne Kennard Drepaul was diagnosed with stomach cancer around June 2008. Although she was not able to attend, a Cancer Awareness for Rural Education (CARE) cricket match was held at the family cricket ground at Bush Lot Farm on the Corentyne Coast in August 2008. My mother passed away in October 2008. On the first anniversary of her passing in 2009, I took my mother’s ashes to be distributed at the waterside at the Bush Lot Farm. It was my intention to erect a cricket stand in her honour. Unknown to me and without my permission, two cricket stands had been erected on the family cricket ground bearing the name of a Dave Balgobin, who I later found out to be an Guyanese-born American businessman on a philanthrophic mission to bring cricket to Berbice.
In my haste and anger with this ‘eye pass,’ I painted my late mother’s name and my late Uncle Winston Kennard’s name across the stands.
As it transpired, Mr Balgobin was subsequently arrested in the US and charged with violating the US conflict of interest laws. The national papers in Guyana carried full details of the arrest, in particular the Kaieteur News which published my first letter on this saga on January 12.
I have recently been informed by the US Department of Justice that Mr Balgobin has pleaded guilty to the charges against him and is due to be sentenced on October 14 in New York.
I have informed the US Department of Justice that Mr Balgobin’s name will be removed from the cricket stands and they will be renamed the ‘Liberty’ and ‘Justice’ stands. Those who believe in these principles will be allowed into the family matches without hindrance or charge, as my great grandfather, Dr Charles Poole Kennard, so desired. This is my token effort in honour of my late mother, (whose 80th birthday would have been on August 4) to stop the cancer of corruption, which is killing the land of our birth.
Yours faithfully,
Robert S Drepaul
